Designing Hierarchical Exploratory Experiences for Ethnic Costumes: A Cultural Gene-Based Perspective

2025-11-07

AI Summary

Current digital representations of ethnic costumes remain largely static, failing to convey deep cultural connotations or foster user engagement. To address this, we propose a “Three-Tier Cultural Gene Decoding” framework—comprising visual symbols, socio-historical context, and spiritual essence—and develop an interactive digital platform guided by gene-prioritized design and centered on AI-augmented co-creation. The platform supports exploratory learning and personalized narrative generation. Innovatively integrating cultural gene analysis with generative AI, it enables dynamic content synthesis and real-time user-responsive interaction. Empirical evaluation demonstrates significant improvements in users’ depth of cultural understanding, strength of emotional connection, and sense of cultural identity. This work establishes a transferable, systematic design paradigm for intangible cultural heritage (ICH) digitization.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Game Design — Procedural Content Generation & Storytelling
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Natural Language Processing: Generation

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic ramifications for generative AI infrastructure and applications
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data generation and simulation

Abstract

Ethnic clothing is a vital carrier of cultural identity, yet its digital preservation often results in static displays that fail to convey deep cultural meaning or foster user engagement. Existing practices lack a systematic design framework for translating the hierarchical cultural connotations of these garments into dynamic, personalized, and identity-promoting digital experiences. To address this gap, this paper proposes a Three-Layer Cultural Gene Framework that systematically decodes ethnic costumes from their surface-level visual symbols, through their mid-level socio-cultural contexts, to their inner-layer spiritual core. Based on this framework, we designed and implemented an interactive digital platform featuring two key innovations: a"gene-first"exploratory path that encourages curiosity-driven discovery, and an AI-powered co-creation experience. This generative feature allows users to co-create personalized narratives and images based on their understanding of the"inner-layer"genes, transforming them from passive observers into active co-creators. A mixed-methods user study (N=24) was conducted to evaluate the platform. The findings demonstrate that our approach effectively enhances users'cultural cognition, deepens their affective connection, and significantly promotes their sense of cultural identity. This research contributes a validated framework and a practical exemplar for designing generative, identity-building digital experiences for cultural heritage, offering a new pathway for its preservation and revitalization in the digital age.

Problem

• Static digital displays fail to convey deep cultural meaning of ethnic costumes
• Lack systematic framework for translating cultural connotations into engaging experiences
• Need to transform users from passive observers into active cultural co-creators

Innovation

• Three-Layer Cultural Gene Framework decodes costumes systematically
• Gene-first exploratory path encourages curiosity-driven discovery
• AI-powered co-creation transforms users into active participants